Upgrade - 478: Hi, We’re the Weirdos

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Live from Memphis in the aftermath of the Relay FM Podcastathon, Myke and Jason take delivery of new iPhones and Apple Watches. Also, General Motors continues its drive for Apple-like services revenue.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 478 for september 25th 2023 this show is brought to you by factor vitally and ladder my name is mike hurley and i am joined by jason snell hi jason snell mike i'm joining you from across the table high five yay we are currently situated inside of the pod cabin which is stephen hackett studio we would like to extend our thanks to stephen hackett for providing his studio for upgrade to be recorded today he left like he he didn't want to disturb the magic of whatever this is. Well, the usual way that this magic begins is with a snell talk question. And Marley wants to ask, Jason, while in Memphis, did you get to see the train that Stephen is so fond of? Stephen is, there's a train, right, in Memphis that makes.

There are lots of trains trains there are so many trains yes and they steven told me yesterday there's lots of trains in memphis because there aren't many places where you have both river air and rail so like it has a lot memphis is a cargo town for sure which is very funny because memphis it's probably why fedex is here well or is fedex the reason it's such a cargo town i think fedex is the reason it's both i bet it's the geography yes it's leading to fedex leading to everything else my favorite thing about well my favorite and least favorite thing about memphis is the airport it's my least favorite because it's so hard for me to get here as exhibited by last week's upgrade plus which by the way go to get

upgrade plus.com and you can listen to last week's upgrade plus where i told a 20 minute story of my trip through miami and why we were delayed a day and how we slept in the airport and stuff like that so um memphis is called memphis international. There are no international flights. Commercial flights. They probably fly to like the Bahamas. Nope. Maybe. There used to be flights. Oh, okay.

Mexico? But there aren't anymore. Well, now it's FedEx. Right. Oh, yeah. FedEx. FedEx fly international. And you may see this actually because you have a very early flight, I think.

I do. If you get to Memphis Airport early, you see the FedEx planes coming in and out, and you've never seen planes fly so close to each other. It is unbelievable. I was there once very early in the morning, and you would see one plane land, and then another land, and then another land, because it's just so timed. But anyway, so there's a lot of cargo here apparently that's

why there's a train here but did you get to see the train uh i don't know we're we're staying actually at a hotel that is right in the old train station so right on train tracks and everything like that but i've not heard a train huh and there's an active train station yeah i mean i don't think it's that active i think it's there's an amtrak that runs from chicago to new orleans it's as active as any American train line is active, which is not that much comparatively. In that it hasn't been mothballed. It's active, yeah.

It still exists. It's functional. Do people get it? I don't know. Anyway, so I guess that's a no. If you would like to send in a Snow Talk question of your own, please go to upgradefeedback.com where you can do so. So we are here in Memphis because we are 36 hours or so after the podcast-a-thon for St. Jude.

Yes, the length of three other podcast-a-thons away. Where Stephen and I have done this, this is the fifth year. This year, we were very excited to invite our first in-studio guests. We had you and Kathy Campbell come join us. We hosted a 12-hour extravaganza of which will be posted to the RelayFM YouTube channel once we can work out exactly

how to do that. It's a very long file. It's complicated. We have our best man working on the job. I actually think best man's computer is loading it somewhere. Locally, of course. Right behind us. Yeah, he's got to put it on his hard drive. He's got to put it directly on the job yeah i actually think that man's computer is right loading it somewhere right locally of course right behind us yeah he's got to put it on his hard drive gotta put it directly on the hard drive it's really fm content it goes on steven's hard drive so this was part of our fundraising that we do throughout all of september it's still september we've got another

week of september and go to stjude.org relay and you can still give to the kids of st jude you can still sign up to for a fundraiser of your own you can still earn to the kids of St. Jude. You can still sign up for a fundraiser of your own. You can still earn exclusive Real AFM merchandise for doing so. There are stickers available. There are wallpapers available, screensavers available, but all of it is to help the kids of St. Jude. I want to thank everybody who has donated so far. We've raised over $545,000 so far

for the kids of St. Jude, which is surpassing everybody's expectations. We didn't know how this year was going to go. Times are tough economically. For this community to have come together to raise such a huge amount of money is incredible. But we're not stopping. We still have another week.

And we don't stop because St. Jude won't stop until their life-saving work uh is done and that no child dies from cancer with your support will be one step closer to that day one cure closer one child closer during the podcast on uh stephen was joined by his wife mary and they spoke through this area that called the family commons which we also got to see the outside of and some of that when we took a tour, which you got to do for the first time. One of the most important parts of being a patient at St. Jude is that they give you the space to not just be a patient, to just be a kid. The Family Commons was opened this year. It's a 45,000 square foot space just for families. It's treatment and clinical staff

free there's no doctors there's no nurses it is just families it is a place for them to rest and reconnect between appointments this isn't even the housing this is just a place like if you're going to be here all day just come and hang out there are music rooms like they have recording studios art rooms maker spaces with 3d printers They have places for the families to get coffee, to take calls, maybe if you're a working parent and you need to call in. They have booths where you can do that. This space came about from the feedback from parents of St. Jude, from their patients, like St. Jude patients,

so the parents of patients who were looking for spaces where they could get downtime together. So St. Jude built it. Right. Something other than the hospital cafeteria, which is traditionally the place that everybody has to go to if you have a moment where you need to do something or you need to get out of the context of being in a hospital. I've lived through that too. When they said this is an alternative to the cafeteria, I thought to myself, oh, I understand exactly what you're saying because I've spent way too much time in hospital cafeterias.

And they're fine. They feed you and stuff. Some of them are lovely. They're lovely people. It doesn't let you escape that you're in the hospital, though. Exactly. Whereas this is a refuge. In fact, you said we got to see it from the outside.

That's because we're not patient families. We're not patient families only. Not tour groups, not doctors, just the people who are allowed in patient families only not tour groups not doctors just the people who are doing uh who are at st jude for other reasons to give them a place that is not medical in the 10 years i've been coming here i've been to st jude a lot and over time the tour groups have less and less access to the hospital which i think is actually a really good thing it's used we used to be able to go into the hospital and they would show you some, you wouldn't go to where they were treating people,

you'd be going inside and seeing some of the rooms and some of the waiting areas and stuff. They stopped doing all of that now because they're just continuing their focus on this is for the kids and it's for the families. That's it. I think St. Jude's is an incredible place, an incredible energy place of incredible energy

full of incredible people but it needs support and so while we are so incredibly grateful for the support of our community over the last five years and this year there's still always more money to be raised please go to st jude.org relay you can donate you can find out more about fundraising uh you can go and learn more there because saint jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer with your support we'll be one step closer to that day one cure closer one child closer this month and every month let's cure childhood cancer together we had a uh well i was gonna say we had a fun time. We did have a fun time. We had many times. Yeah. There were many... 12 hours is a long time.

It's a lot of times. We had a good time. We did. We did. It was hard. It was hard. But it was really good. Yeah.

There was... I never thought... I had a moment where I thought, oh God, I never have pictured being in a place where I am forced to spin a wheel and play games because we are an hour and a half from the end and all that. But it was like, it was so fun, but it was also bizarre, right? It's just bizarre because you're playing games

and you're on the internet and people are commenting on you. And it was an unreal experience, but I was there with my pals and we had a great time. Easily the best one. Like just without a shadow of a doubt, it was the best podcast I've done. It was the most fun. We had the best content.

Like all of the planning worked out. It paid off. The work paid off. We did things we'd never done before. And just from a planning perspective, we did two days of rehearsals this time, which was better. In the past, we did like one day of rehearsal,

which is not enough. We did like actual, actual rehearsals, which was better um in the past even like one day of rehearsal which is not enough we did like actual actual rehearsals which was good like we rehearsed things and tweaked things yeah we figured out some stuff like on the day before for sure i think it came together to make it just a fantastic show like i i you know you're never sure like i was like oh 12 hours that are going to be lols and like i think that 12 hours is watchable start to finish and you will have a good time the whole way through so once it's on our youtube channel i recommend if you haven't seen it like just go and watch it like it's a really good time like you're

going to enjoy yourself like we played lots of great games and there were moments of just like they're all losing it yeah they're they're i was gonna say there are two or three moments and i knew they would happen but you never know when two or three moments when we just kind of all completely lost it, and those are magical moments too. There's a moment in there where we're playing the game where we have to read each other's lips, and so we're over-enunciating, and you said some stuff that was just…

Cassie said some stuff. Yeah, we all said some stuff. It was bizarre. It was hilarious. There's just some great moments. This is always a good time to hang out in the discord because there's now lots of discord memes which is good zach knox in the chat room says ratatouille you won't know it until you see it ratatouille everybody knows yep yeah it was like i i think this is coming across now i feel like i realized this as I started. My energy is low today. We're recovering still, for sure.

Yeah, and I don't know why, but I always struggle with these things. It hits me really, really hard. I had a couple of moments. I have back problems, and they're better now than they've ever been, but there were a couple of points, and I was just like, oh, God. I couldn't move.

At one point, it got rough. There were a couple of moments where you excused yourself. Well, most of those, it was interesting. I had to keep leaving to use the bathroom. Nobody else did that, and I find that very strange. I would sometimes be like, I don't know, halfway through a thing, like, I need to leave the set now yeah yeah i noticed i um i made a point of going to the bathroom literally every time i exited the studio that me too i was i was drinking an incredible

amount of coffee okay that must be it like i had this that big blue like yeti kind of thing that was constantly being refilled right they they they at one point they brought in a starbucks order from you and it was two venti ice which was that i had three venti ice lattes so i didn't need much i made a joke about 12 red bulls one every hour i think that was a joke something i said on connected a couple of weeks ago but no i just i was just going the whole time and it kept me going sure but yeah i just had like a couple of moments so i didn't hurt myself which is good i was worried that that could happen because that happens um but i was just like feeling a breakdown after it was like hour six and an hour like 12 right so just on my profan and i was good to go

yeah but yeah there was a moment where i was like I need to go sit down for a little bit. So we got a little hangover going on from all of that. Yes, felt very hungover yesterday. We went to a baseball game, which was good fun. We did. And now we're back. We're back. It's a Sunday upgrade.

We're recording on Sunday, by the way. Yes. This won't come out on Sunday, but we're recording on Sunday. Just so you know. So if anything happens in the next 24 hours, don't blame us. Don't blame us, no. Stjude.org slash Relay. I have some of your favorite follow-up, which is more GM follow-up.

Oh, boy. How will General Motors Corporation make me angry today? Every time I see a story about GM, I think about you. Thank you. So GM have hired more ex-members of Apple's services team for its in-car entertainment division. Oh, good. This comes from Zach Hall at 9to5Mac. Friend of the show.

David Richardson, GM's new vice president of software and services. Prior to being hired by GM, Richardson worked at Apple for nearly 12 years. His last role at Apple was director of engineering for Apple's cloud infrastructure. And also, Baris Satinok,

who previously worked at apple for nine years until 2021 during his time at apple satinok worked as a senior director over product management marketing for icloud apple pay and other digital services they join mike abbott who left apple for gm a few months ago to head up the whole project so he's clearly bringing his lieutenants it would seem yeah this is fascinating right because as weird as it is to think of apple as a hardware software and services company um so the argument here is well you know it's not unreasonable gm is a company that also sells products like apple does and they want to get into services. On a pure business standpoint, I get it. The problem I have, and look, maybe, I'm sure these people aren't dumb.

I'm sure they've got a plan. My problem with it is, if I go back to the CarPlay decision, it's partially a this fantasy that gm will be at the center of your life and it is a fantasy because the difference between your general motors automobile and your iphone is that your iphone is at the center of your life and with you all the time, and your General Motors automobile, with very specific exceptions, if you're a Lyft driver, I guess, or you, you know, whatever, like, it's not at the center of your life. You leave it

and do other things. And that's the problem I have with this is, like, I don't dispute that there aren't things the GM could offer as services that could be valuable, but I'm a little bit baffled about how you make the leap unless it's, I mean, I could start to think about like partnerships or things like that, but like, really the fact is we don't live in a world where your car is at the center of your life. We live at the world where the smartphone is at the center of your life. And it feels to me like they're trying to say, we want to be like Apple. And you can't, you just don't, I don't want to say don't even try, but what I want to say is know where you fit in people's lives. And by spurning CarPlay, I feel like they don't know because that is the, that is the, like the root of all of this is no,

no, your car is more important than your phone. And I'm sorry. It's not, it's never more important than your phone. This is, this is always thing. I talk about this a lot from a different,

you made me mad again. What happened? General Motors! I'm sorry. This is like a thing that I think about a lot when it comes to like the app store where there's like a, not necessarily like a delusion of grandeur, but just like an idea of grandeur, right?

Where every big company believes that they are the most important. Exactly. And like sometimes I sided that idea of like, who are Apple to tell Facebook what to do? Why does one get to tell the other what to do? Why can't they both tell each other what to do? Why can't they both just do whatever they want to do?

Right. And this is GM saying, no one tells us what to do in our car. And like, in a sense, I understand that. Totally. and like one of the things i understand that totally but i don't and i understand that when and i agree with that when it also can benefit the customer but as of right now it seems like it can't maybe they make the best in-car entertainment system ever known to man maybe and then we can all say well they were right to do it but it just doesn't seem like that could be possible because of what you're explaining of like in-car entertainment now connects to our

phones but like i know it annoys like i know like tesla owners and rivian owners are frustrated about the fact that doesn't use carplay but it's not like because it's bad, they would just like it because it would be easier. But everything I've seen is like, oh, people like what they make, right? Yeah, the challenge is integration with services, which is why I have so much pause when I see this because there are a couple of ways that this goes. One way is they say, well, we work with podcasts,

but only with this podcast partner or these, only with Spotify. So listen to Spotify. And if you don't use Spotify for podcasts or music, is the other example here. Music is happening all the time, right? Different cars have different partnerships with different services.

And Apple has been more aggressive with that. Like Tesla now does both Spotify and Apple Music when it didn't used to but so that's part of the danger is like there's an app you care about there's something that you really care about and your car is like nope the use and and it's and it's your car saying for you to use me you need to change how you live your life everywhere because you need to change the services that are on your phone do the manual bluetooth connection drain your phone battery like which is not great it's not as good we've moved past that now right so so that's that's part of it that concerns me and the

other way that this could go that concerns me a little bit is do they have the fantasy that like well but what we're going to do is we're going to start our own music service you see and then what you'll do is you just won't subscribe to spotify or apple music anymore you'll take your gm music with you when you leave your car which as we know is the center of your life and use the gm music app on your phone to listen to music i'm grooving with gm now everybody grooving music yeah yeah grooving music gm that's it and you could get like good media which would be the television yeah you know you just keep doing that down the thing that surprises me about this i think is like all these people are leaving apple so there is a vision right somebody has a vision because all these people are leaving apple to go to gm and it's not like

i'm saying apple's the best company ever but like if this is the work that you do if you and if you care about this work you're doing really big important interesting work at apple maybe they want a smaller team maybe they want you know i don't know but it's just very intriguing to me that not just one person left now this one person is able to i'm assuming entice other people that they have worked with to come over to gm i mean maybe they want to build something new yeah i mean maybe maybe it's interesting maybe they're getting paid more maybe they're working in a you know place with a lower cost of living maybe they just want to build something new and that this is an exciting idea to reformulate what because that's the future of the car is. I'm assuming these people are leaving California

and going to Michigan to do this, right? I assume so. I mean, they might have a California office. Which again, see, that's the thing. If GM had set up a place in California to do this, I'd be like, hmm. Because that would just be an interesting choice of like, they're serious, but who knows? we're gonna keep following this uh as it goes on your

favorite gm entertainment system yeah we have to come up with whatever we're gonna be well this is i guess this is upshift yeah i guess this is upshift we welcome we just backed into it huh huh i've just changed upshift i've just changed if you saw in your podcast player that this was always upshift that's we've retroactive we went back in time we retroactively changed it to the upshift chapter so i again i would love and this will probably happen at some point i really would love to know what gm legitimately thinks about the future of services on their cars because the other thing i want to say here is that it's not all about car play. I feel pretty strongly that if this is really a great strategy,

they should welcome car play. They should just allow car play. Because what they will say is, you won't need it. You won't want it. Our stuff is going to be better. But what it feels like they're doing is trapping you. And I don't like that. And I don't know if it would like this at the bank,

but I have been in and around enough big corporations to know that sometimes big corporations behave as if the thing that they're doing is rational because culturally or because of the leader in charge, even if individual employees know it's not, this is what the company is going to do. And I just get a big whiff of that from GM here is that this is a big swing that they've said they're going to do. And all of us are sort of down here going,

wait a second, do you really think? And I think you get that tunnel vision sometimes too when you're literally driving a gm car through a tunnel if you are it's all about you and it's not all about you if you are a car manufacturer in 2023 you are looking down the barrel of all cars are the same right you've got electric changes the way a car feels right and it makes cars feel much more alike then you've got in-car entertainment systems they're all by apple or google removes the personality of the car like you can't differentiate there and i know you've there are so many more things but these are two things that historically

were different and like it's interesting to me that for Ford has gone so far into car play because Ford, I feel like were the first in like trying to really like with that Ford sync thing, really trying to differentiate themselves. Maybe they learned their lesson. I think they did. Because I think they started so early that I think they realized people don't like that kind of stuff. But that's what I feel like I could imagine some longtime car executives being like, no,

we must plant our flags and say why we are different, and so we cannot lose the in-car, because they think that that's not as important, where they know there's nothing they can do about electric. Right, I get the strategy. I just think that it comes from a place that's sort of delusional. It's not a good one. Because they've already lost it.

They're not the center of people's world they have to find you have to find new ways to differentiate right best product is the one that does the best at integrating with the rest of your life digitally and has the best in-car experience as the things that should matter is the comfort of the car the way that it looks right like these are the things that should matter the the what you get for your money and like this is where companies like i think hyundai are having a great time right now because and kia because they're making good looking electric cars that are decent priced with a lot of stuff inside and it's shooting them up because they're realizing well that's how we'll differentiate

i don't know this is no car podcast what What do we know? It's a hard thing. Yeah, I'm sure Sam, Abu, El-Sameed will write in. Or just like a bunch of listeners. Steve and Casey, they're all just like, what are they doing over here? Yeah, but right, I think that is the conundrum. And it's the idea that you now have a mobile device that's at the center of everybody's lives. And it's not the car. It is the phone, and that any service that they could try to monetize

that isn't based on very specific in-car data is something that the phone's going to do better. So how do you differentiate? And two ways are build a wall or differentiate on the places where you can and leave the rest of it alone. I think with electric cars, as an owner of electric cars, I think that,

you know, you can control some things about your electric car driving experience and your charging and your battery state and all of that. I think that, that would be where I'd be the most afraid is I would be afraid of letting Apple and Google control that whole part of the interface too, right? And say, where's my next charger? And am I going to start preparing my car for the charging and all of those sort of things that real-time driving is a place where they can differentiate.

There are a lot of other places they can differentiate, but I think the world is full of businesses who tried to fight against the inevitable shift toward their thing not being as exclusive as it was. And I don't think any of them won. I'm sure we'll be coming back to this now in future episodes for a little bit. For sure. This episode is brought to you by factor with the busy fall season already fully in swing you're going to be looking for some wholesome convenient meals for your jam-packed days factor is america's number one ready to eat meal kit and it can help you fuel up fast with chef prepared dietitian approved ready to eat meals delivered straight to your door you're going to be saving time eating

well and staying on track with your healthy lifestyle, all because of Factor. With Factor, you can skip the extra trip to the grocery store. Their fresh, never-frozen meals are ready in just two minutes, and you have more than 34 flavor-packed options to choose from every week. So it's not just like the food is being delivered to you. It's being delivered to you in a state that is basically ready.

Right, Jason? Like you just throw it in the microwave in some instances yeah i mean you can heat it up in an oven if you want to or you can just microwave it for three minutes and it's ready yeah which is fantastic that's convenient and high quality i know you've spoken on the show before about like the ingredient quality is good like and it's better than the kind of stuff that you would find in its class exactly right it's it's uh i was anytime something comes to in a box to my house i I'm a little like, okay, is this going to be any good? And all the ingredients were very high quality. That was the thing that really jumped out at me. And you can also level up, get something extra special with the gourmet plus

options that are prepared to perfection by chefs and ready to eat in record time. So you can treat yourself to some upscale premium meals with ingredients like broccolini, leeks, truffle butter, and asparagus. I must be a fancy boy because I like the sound of all those ingredients. Plus, you can keep your energy up with lunch to go. In fact, there's effortless, wholesome meals like grain balls and salad toppers with no microwave required. Then, to finish your order, choose from 45 add-ons including breakfast items like apple cinnamon pancakes, bacon and cheddar, egg bites, and smoothies. And you can rest assured you're making a sustainable choice because Factor offset 100% of their delivery emissions to your door,

along with sourcing renewable electricity and featuring sustainably sourced seafood. This September, get Factor and enjoy eating well without the hassle. Choose your meals and eat fresh. It's so simple with their flavor-packed meals delivered directly to your door, ready in just two minutes, no prep, no mess. Head to factormeals.com slash upgrade50 and use the code upgrade50 to get 50% off your first box.

That's upgrade50, that's upgrade50 at factormeals.com slash upgrade50 to get 50% of your first box. Thanks to Factor for their support of this show and RelayFM. So you wouldn't know it considering we spoke about GM for 20 minutes, but it's new iPhone time.

It is. So we've got iPhones. You've got iPhones. I have an iPhone. What do you have? All of them. Okay, so you have one of everything, right have one of everything what do you my review what are you using most though well i mean i literally got it here in memphis on so friday on thursday night so i migrated my 14 pro to the 15 pro just to have that as my in pocket experience for the for the weekend

basically and then i have one in a box getting that didn't get delivered to my house that i have because i wasn't there yeah that i have to go back to i have the iphone 15 pro max which i bought here um and i mostly migrated so i did the device to device transfer, it went way better for me this time than last time, I have a to do list of things that I need to check. It's most like anything test flight related gets all messed up, right? And I have to sign into some stuff. But by and large, things have gone well, they're working well. The only thing that I've not been able to do yet, which I say, it's actually quite an important thing. I've not been able to move my eSIM over. And I think the reason is because it can't connect to my carrier network, right? Because I'm here, my carrier is in the United Kingdom.

And so when it's doing the activating part, it's like connecting to your network. I'm like, oh, you're not going to be able to do that because i'm roaming so it can't that's what i'm expecting is the case uh but i'll take care of it when i get home i did it last year uh and i'll do it again this year because we still in the uk it's not the all e-sim thing so you can use an e-sim you can also use a regular sim where in america they're all e-sim right and so last year i got my physical SIM transferred to an eSIM, but we just need to go eSIM to eSIM. And maybe I'll just need to do that when I get home.

So right now, I've got two phones. I'm trying to use the new phone. And so I'm carrying around in my bag my old phone, which I'm tethering to when I'm out of the house. And that's working great. But it's new phone time, so we can't talk about new phones. So obviously, I'm on 15 the house. Sure. And that's working great. But it's new phone time, so we can't talk about new phones. So obviously I'm on 15 Pro Max

natural titanium. Looks good. It looks real good. Mm-hmm. Like, I miss gold. I know. But I also got my Apple Watch Ultra, which I can talk about later on in the show.

Pretty good match. They look pretty good together. And so that's the consolation for me. And I feel like i saw yours that you have the blue right i have a the pro max in blue pro max in blue and i can see a bit more of the like brushed look on the natural than on on the blue yeah i do still wish there was a little bit more of that visibly in there. That texture? Yeah. I don't need to feel it, but I would like to see a bit more of it. But it's still there, and I think it's a good match.

And I actually do quite like the finish on the back. I think the gray is different, and I like that. Yeah, I'm never going to get super enthusiastic about the gray, but I do think that the natural is a much nicer look than I really thought it would be seeing it in on multiple phones since I've been here. I think it's a really nice look. For the record, the blue titanium is, I would say not as close a match to the midnight MacBook Air as I thought it was. It's just not quite right. It's a little lighter actually,

maybe a little bluer. it's actually a color closer to what i wish the midnight macbook air was but it's not okay um and then i think the black is just going to be like straight up um you know it's that same color but without the blue highlight it's fine yeah um and i've always leaned toward the darker phone anyway i kind of like the dark phone but i will say that the natural titanium frame and the gray back and that the the glass color it's really really nice it's an interesting look it is yeah we got at the end of the blue pro she just doesn't want a black gray or white phone so she always whatever the color is just give me the color just go for that so she has a blue and she's and they're actually not too

she has a blue 13 and like she put them they're not massively different to each other so for her it's great she just puts a case on anyway and i know that for a lot of people this is like a moot point but i don't put a case on my phone i don't put a case of people this is like a moot point but i don't put a case on my phone i don't put a case on my phone i like i want it to have a look so it feels really great in the hand it is so much lighter um we got to see you know you guys took your phones out of the boxes and i i got to hand you a pro max even before that and you did the same reaction i did which is say oh it's light it's light it's light. I don't really know what I was expecting exactly, but it is a big difference.

The Pro Max especially. You pick it up, and I've been using both of them as I've been doing the transfers, and just handling one after another, it is a significant difference. I do feel like for people on the fence, this could be the crossover year for a lot of people because i think if you go to an apple store and pick one up you'll be really surprised of course you're still dealing with the physical size but it's it's easier to

handle although even the physical size is a little bit smaller than i know i could notice that it's noticeable i i got an admission to make for you, which is, you know me, mini phone club, and I've been using a 14 Pro. I picked up the 15 Pro Max, and I thought, you know, this isn't that bad. It's not that bad. Do you know what, Jason? It's actually not bad. It's good.

Well. It doesn't need to be bad at all. It can just be good, you know, and I think it's very good. at all it can just be good you know and i think it's very good and i have been surprised actually by the feeling of the smoother edges it does feel different and i would say without looking too different because i like the look i like the boxy look and i feel like they've done a good job there of still kind of retaining the design. It does sort of feel like that. I know this isn't technically what happened, but it feels like sanding down the edges of

a piece of wood. Everything is just a little bit smoother around the edges than it was before. One of the big reasons that people are interested about the Pro Max especially is the camera. What do you think of the camera system in this phone? I took some pictures. I posted some on Mastodon. I posted my first actually on Mastodon out the hotel window down to the street. And like first off, I should say,

the camera system on these phones is very impressive. Yeah. The 3X on the Pro is very impressive. The image stabilization is very impressive. The 5X, though, like, it's a lot. And there is a gap between 2X and 5X where you're sort of digitally zooming into the 2X instead. 5x where you're sort of digitally zooming into the 2x instead. But if you want to go for distance, like a thing I do from time to time is try to zoom in on something and take a picture and then zoom in on that in the photos app. So I can read like what that thing is. That's far away.

Like I did this at the baseball game last night where I got up to the counter and they were serving the person in front of me. And there was a refrigerator in the back of the bar that had these cans partially turned away of beer. And I was like, what beers do they have? And I zoomed in and took a picture and zoomed in and literally was able to read the cans to figure out what beer I wanted. I got the peanut and banana porter that's made in honor of Elvis. You got me a Shiner Bock. And I did get you a Shiner Bock. Well, I got a Shiner Bock for the group and then i took it you took it so it was

for you retroactively so um so that part of the 5x is also kind of mind-blowing because i was so far away from some stuff and you could like read the stuff in the window like really just very impressive yeah if you're trying to do telephoto photography like i haven't had as much experience with it yet with the system um of my own i've just been kind of playing around with it the thing that i am most shocked by is the image clarity at the 5X. It, to me, looks as good as the 1X. Like, the sharpness of the image, the color, the overall clarity of the image is great. I didn't necessarily think it wouldn't be,

but I didn't expect it to be if I think about, like, the introduction of the other lens types that Apple's done before. The Ultra Wide was never as good as the main. The Telephoto was never good as the main and they came they leveled up over time to make a more like stable and steady look across all of the lenses and i think for first out of the gate with the tetraprism telephoto lens i think that they've they appear to me at least to have done a very good job with admittedly like six photos that i've taken like this is a much longer period of time thing

and there's other stuff that i'm intrigued to see you know what i'm hoping for is something i don't think will happen which will be that the macro lens turns on less but i just think that the gate is like the the the barn door is open on that one the horse is bolted like if i want the 48 megapixel lens the focal distance is not this going to be the same um i'm intrigued to play around with the focal length change stuff a bit more like i've i've pressed the button and watched it change from like what's like 24 to 28 to 35 but i don't really fully understand yet what i will get out of that but i want to learn i think the way and i i asked apple about this i think the way it works

is essentially between 1x and 2x those stops are to give you the equivalent focal length. Yeah. But what they've really built in is not, because what I asked them is, is there anything special about those stops? And my impression is there isn't. That Apple's, what do they call it? Photonic engine, the pipeline,

the image pipeline between 1X and 2X, which is so between taking all 48 megapixels as the source or zooming into the middle 24 megapixels of the source, or 12 megapixels of the source. Anyway, on that 48 megapixel sensor, they are at every stop along the way processing with what they said, which is they're grabbing the 48 and they're grabbing the bend and they're doing a bunch of processing and they're putting it together and they're outputting a 24 megapixel image. So essentially those things are affordances for people who are comfortable with those sort of like stops because it feels better to say 35 millimeter than it is to say 1.5 or whatever but that they're processing it everywhere along the way between 1x and 2x through that image pipeline and that's one of the ways that they can get a much better quality image out at 24 megapixels i'm just happy

to get the 24 megapixels i was just sitting here taking some photos of you because I was pressing the little buttons to see what happens at 1x the images look really good, color is good we've got good lighting in here but just overall the detail is very good this is a thing that I am excited to spend more time doing

just to see how good is this 24 megapixel stuff but I like that these focal length things exist if anything just to maybe help me frame an image a little bit differently easily um so i'm gonna play around with it like i'm gonna see what it does one of these images that i just took of you it did the automatic like hey could this be a portrait thing which is which is fun so that just popped up there because i am a person and or dog or cat. Yeah, so it's just next to where you have the options for the live photo.

They just sit right there. So I have in the same menu live options and portrait options. I think that's a really good way of doing it. That's nice. And if you edit, you can actually change the focal distance and everything. Yeah, which I would do because I always like to bump it down a little bit. Although this is a very good portrait image of you, I will say.

So there we go. Yeah, while doing a podcast. So, I mean, you know, this is the thing, right? Like this 5x lens, it's going to tell the story of the Pro Max, I think. The way that people react to it in the short and medium term is going to just further push which is the most popular of these devices and you know we spoke about it it seems like so far the pro max is selling really well

and i expect that that's pretty similar at the beginning because it's like the biggest most phone which i assume sells its best earlier maybe so and then you know maybe it make the mix gets a little different over time but i'm expecting that if the story continues to be told of like hey this is a really cool camera system that maybe it shifts the pro max to become even more popular this time and i think that would then more likely inform in the next couple of years iphone iphone pro iphone pro max iphone ultra just if the big one continues to get a bigger slice of the pie what more can you do to push up the price because i do not expect personally that the plus the 15 plus is going to really make much ground this year and i think that's going to be like we're made even worse by the fact that the other big phone is really cool

right different i think this is an even harder challenge for the 15+. I know they're in totally different price brackets, but I could imagine if somebody just wants a bigger phone, maybe they'd be more likely to opt for the more expensive one this time than they would have before. And you have the plus. You actually have the plus in pink, which I think is a good color.

You have the yellow in the 15, which is nothing. It is no color. It is white. But the pink, I actually think they did a good job on the pink. I like the pink. But it just strikes me, and it's the same as when I went to the store and I saw the plus there. It's just like that is a weird, ugly, dark phone to me in a way.

Well, I do wonder if Apple is looking at its sales figures and there are certain markets where that phone does well, right? I mean, maybe, but they tried the mini twice and then took it away. Like, I think that whenever they make these decisions,

I don't think that they reverse them after a year, you know? No, it would be, the question is, what are the sales figures from last year? Right, there's no, you're right, the existence of that phone this year, I know? No, it would be, the question is, what are the sales figures from last year? Right. There's no, you're right. The existence of that phone this year, I think means nothing because the mini, we knew when

the 14 mini came out, 13 mini came out, that it was gone already. That was going to be the end because of the sales figures for the 12 mini. So 14 plus has sort of told the tale about the fate of the plus phone. But I wonder if it exists, because you're right, it does seem weird, but I do wonder if there are markets that are more inclined for a big phone and are more

price sensitive where the Plus makes sense. It's also possible that it doesn't make sense. The thing that I agree with you, but the thing on that is that it's the exact same story we're saying about the Mini. There are markets that are more price sensitive, and that was the with you, but the thing on that is that it's the exact same story we're saying about the Mini. Yeah. There are markets that are more price sensitive, and that was the cheapest one, right? And people want a smaller phone.

Like, this is a story we hear all the time. But it turns out, obviously not, because Apple got rid of it. Like, there are, of course, people that care about both of those things, but obviously not in the numbers that made it a sensible phone to continue so i am now on full on the train of ultra and i i already can tell you one of the features i want from the ultra i want a fourth lens okay so like my hope would be that with you know the the next time they can update this tetraprism maybe they can get it to six seven eight times and then put like a three-time telephone in there i'll um while we're inventing a product for apple that they

probably already invented two years ago um new camera bump that is a terrace that goes across the phone like the pixel yes yeah which not only would fit potentially your fourth lens, but spreads the lenses out so that you can place two good lenses on either side so that you can get better stereo separation for stereo capture. So it makes it even better, like next generation Vision Pro images and photos, right? Maybe. That would be a bold design change, right? To go, to do something like that.

But if you're going to have an Apple or an iPhone Ultra. Do it. Maybe that's where you make those kind of bold changes. Or down the side or whatever. But like if you had them, if you had a more inline, that gives you the stereo separation too. I wouldn't mind that whole top part just go the whole way across

and put a bunch of lenses in on the top something like that as a new design. I mean then you're shooting vertically and they would have to address that but I don't know. I mean yes but it's better than these two next to each other right? The ones that we currently have

which apparently can do this spatial video. So like if the two, that one on top of the other can do it, if there's one on one corner and one on the other corner, it's surely going to be better. You would think. You would think.

Do you have any more to say on the hardware, the camera, or the design, the colors, that kind of stuff? Well, so when we talked, I had already tried them at the hands-on. I don't know if I have a whole lot to say there. I continue to be kind of stuff well so when we talked i had already tried them at the hands-on i don't know if i have a whole lot to say there um i continue to be kind of disappointed by the color i thought your perspective on the pink was really good um it sounds like i don't know the green but lauren's getting the green so we'll see people who've gotten the blue or seen the blue say

that it's essentially white i think blue and yellow and yellow is essentially white are just like you could probably mistake them like that it's a very odd very odd except for on the camera so good and it made me like oh do it to the whole thing like what how whatever the the makeup was to get the really like uh saturated color in the camera bump the whole phone should be that color. They were so close. Maybe they just need to double the thickness of the glass. Yeah, that'll solve it. That'll solve it.

So I appreciate that, especially since, as some people know, it is a subtle pink, and I can't see that. So that didn't help me any. So thank you for that. The pink is off of that list is that the colors don't matter because you put them in a case i get it and the camera bump is the part

with the best color yeah and that's the part you can see you can see i mean on to cases though let's talk about fine woven i would say that the dawn has been blowing up over fine woven yeah if you're on the dawn the socials now this is really interesting to me to chart the way this has gone because the majority of hands-on time that i heard from people at apple park was saying feels nice seems interesting or like didn't really have a massive opinion on it and then as time has gone on, more people are getting it. And I think the more people are using it in their lives, it's starting to tell a different story.

And I was very dubious the whole time of what Apple were going to do and then what they showed off. Because we spoke about it, a lot of leather replacements can be bad for the environment in their own ways because they're rubbers or plastics which can be hard to make and it felt like apple was leaning into more the environmental part than the animal rights part of leather because they actually didn't mention that at all right because they could say well we're improving things we decided we don't want to use animals in our

products anymore and so we're going away from uh and cows are very bad for the environment so we're going to go away from that and replace it with vegan leather and then they know that they're going to get truth detected immediately and it's going to be like aha but that's plastic you're ruining the environment they're like forget over it they were just like we've done this because it's better for the environment and maybe the way that they make the fine woven cases is just like manufacturally better for the environment or whatever but when i first felt one so steven had one and i and i tried it out last week, to me it felt like paper. And I've experienced papers, like high-end luxury papers,

that feel like the fine woven texture. And I think just over the last week, people are turning against it. It does not feel like a $60 case. That's the thing that bugs me. i agree with you i was holding it because it's on a couple of my review phones and moving my finger along the back of it and it's just got this it's fuzzy and it's got this kind of texture on it as you go and like i see what they're going for. It's not my preferred choice. I would like to know what it's made of.

Because I think they should have gone with fabric, like an actual fabric, which fine woven in the name you would assume is, but I think it's some kind of recycled material. Right. Which is being turned into a thread yes and and woven together but like steven has one of those peak design cases and they have a fabric that almost feels like their backpack fabric and that just feels nicer there's a little padding to it makes it soft to hold and it's nice but like the fine woven is like no we're gonna make an iphone case like we currently make them but out of this different

material and like the edge of it feels cheap to me yeah it feels like they press it in a certain way maybe apply heat or something to to make this kind of like again it feels like a kind of rubbery plastic feel but the edges then don't there's like, a nice connection, I feel like, on the sides. Is it a bad case? I don't know. I think it is a bad replacement for the most expensive case. I recommend to everyone that wants an Apple case, I used silicone cases forever. I like the silicone case. I think it's good.

The colors are good. Like, the colors are actually good in the silicone cases. That would be my recommendation but if you are a leather phone case company you are rolling in it right yeah like the nomads and bellroys of the world they're just having a great time so a couple of things here one is i recommend i thought you were going to go down this route and you didn't but i'm gonna i recommend that if you ordered a fine woven accessory and haven't gotten it yet if there's any opportunity for you to try it like touch it from like a friend's case or go to the apple store consider doing that because i'm

going to just throw out the alert i think a lot of people are going to be dissatisfied and it would certainly be easier. I don't know what their return policy is for iPhone cases, but like certainly a lot easier if you just never even open the box because you may be disappointed. Again, everybody's going to have their opinions. I'm sure there are people out there like,

oh no, I like it. Like, okay, right? But I think we need to shine the bat signal here. That's like, this is not great. I don't like it either. I have a teardown, which I'm currently scrolling through. That's my point in the chat. I mean, it's an awesome teardown, but it looks like what I expected.

It is some kind of woven plastic. And they're doing a bunch of things. Our friend Federico had stained his last night, and iFixit are staining it and stuff. I agree. This is just not a good. So this is not good. This is this is what brings me to I think my bigger point about where Apple is here is like, look, okay. Apple accessories are more expensive. Why are they more expensive? Because Apple wants a big product, a big price margin. There are a

couple reasons for that. One is they're the only company that can make cases that have the apple logo on it and some people want to have an apple logo on the on their case because they want to show off that it's an iphone and if you put it in a case that's not clear you don't have an apple logo okay so they got that going for them they are the original equipment equipment manufacturer so they know all the specs although truth be told everybody already knows all the specs and all the other case makers are on top of it somehow right okay but apple likes making money and here's the big thing when you buy an iphone on the apple store online or in the apple store you are immediately like oh would you like an apple case apple case apple case apple case and so in a scenario where they were offered, you were offered like 10 different cases, you might make

a different decision, but you're not, you're offered the Apple cases. So you have to go out of your way to say, no, no, no, Apple, no, I'm going to get my phone from you next Friday, but I'm going to shop around for cases. And where do I do that? I guess on Amazon or whatever. It's so much more convenient just to take the out what apple gives you because you've got to assume as well like you said right like any third-party case you're gonna buy isn't is not designed with all the knowledge in mind like i've seen a lot of cases for the pros that have a cut out for the action button that's not what you want you want a button in in the case. Apple did that because they know. So when you're at that checkout screen,

you're like, well, I could get the case from X company, but how well is it going to fit? I know the Apple one's going to fit. This is the power of that. And Apple makes these cases. So they make the silicone one, which you have recommended to people. I don't love the silicone one because every time I put it in or pull it out of my pocket, it sticks.

I understand that. I don't like it. It's one of the reasons I just go caseless. But I used to have a leather case. But here's the big one, which is Apple charges a lot for its cases. But they bear the stamp of Apple, not just the logo, but of quality. They are the first party. They know their phones backward and forward.

And while you always know you're going to pay more for an Apple case than you are for a third-party case, you're getting something out of it. They are providing, I would say, what is the quintessential Apple thing, which is value for money. You spend a lot of money, but you're going to get something good. And what it feels like to me is that

whatever group is in charge of iPhone accessories, it feels like they lost sight of that to me it feels like this is a case designed to fit in a price point when they had been told due to environmental reasons you can't have leather anymore well i say it's to fit in a price point and a carbon bracket which i'm not saying is a'm not saying is a bad thing. It is a good thing, but it is a new constraint of like, you got to make a case that costs this much to make so we can sell it for this much,

but it's also got to be environmentally friendly in these ways. And I think that's the problem. I think the problem is, what else could they have done? They could have made a different material that doesn't fit the slot of the leather case, is different but good, and at a different price point.

But that's not what it feels like they did. What they were told was, make a replacement for the leather case at the leather case price point with our huge margins, but in the carbon envelope. You're limited with the materials. We don't want to pollute the planet. We don't want to increase carbon. You're limited with the materials. We don't want to pollute the planet. We don't want to increase carbon. You're limited with your materials. Go innovate. It has to protect, and it has to be durable in the ways that it needs to be. And in that context, the people who came up with the fine-woven case,

this may have been the best they could do, right? I'm not saying they botched it. This might actually be the best within those constraints they could do. But it feels to me from the outside looking in that what has happened is that Apple forgot about value for money and they only remembered money. And so they've created a case that costs what a high-end good – because the Apple leather case is good. There are other options and you may not like details about it but the apple leather cases were always good and they seem to have made a product where they're like well the price is really what it's about and it's like for the customer that's not it so that's why i think that this is a colossal disaster in the making is that they

lost the plot about why their case why they get to charge what they charge for cases like i was thinking like how much time do i want to dedicate in my podcasting life right now to talking about iphone cases right because it's like if you know i could i can understand the idea of like it's a the oh we are we like perpetuating case gate here? Is that what this is? But in talking about the colors of the phones, I am brought to the realization that an iPhone case is part of the product. It is. For basically everyone,

except weirdos like me, who don't, right? But the vast majority of people are putting their phone in a case, and this is one of the two that apple say for all of the new phones and so like it it is an important story for these reasons and i also think now please listen to me here all Okay. I am not making any judgment about this, but I think this is going to be an interesting harbinger,

might be the word I'm looking for, for what carbon neutral product design could be like. That we may have, over the next 10 years, some odd spots that will get worked out sure but that this like because i have one of the new apple watch bands that's made from the recycled materials it looks fantastic looks great but it's stiffer that's not a problem but i noticed it was different and it may loosen up over time right but it it it stuck out to me as i oh this is firmer than i'm used to so a point about that which is um i don't know if you remember back in the day

but a while ago so now apple and everybody else has jumped on the braided cable bandwagon and they're really nice but there was a moment where apple was getting i I don't know where it was, BPA? Apple was getting some very bad chemicals out of their plastics. And where you noticed it most was in their cables, because they used to have these cables that were plastic cables, but they were soft and supple. They bent, they moved as you wanted. They were really nice. And what was the chemical that made them soft and supple and nice? A chemical that kills people when it gets into the environment, gives people terrible diseases. It's bad.

I'm like, okay, we got to take that out. Well, guess what? Their cables got stiff and bad, and they broke. They broke open. They were less reliable and less pleasant to use. And we've gotten sort of back to the point where cables are nice again. Boy, I hope the braided cables don't kill anything. Please.

Please. Braided cables, please be nice. Don't murder. Please don't cancel the braided cable. No. So that is a thing we went through, right? Where there was an environmental issue and the product got worse. And I think you're right to bring this up.

As Apple goes toward its 2030 pledge i wonder if part of that's going to be apple getting up on stage and saying they won't say it but the net result will be yeah we know this isn't as good there's just going to be some better for the world some rough spots and i genuinely believe they have the people, skill, talent, resources, money, and time to iron these things out and we end up in a better place. But that there might be a dip for a while until we get back on the trajectory of products feeling good. Because this is just a reality of being more sustainable in product design there are different trade-offs and you

have to work and find like again like i'm i'm very a big part of my life now is paper product manufacturing right as well as just paying attention to pens and paper for years yeah and as as time has gone on so there's a recycled paper that i'm really interested in right now for something that i hope to be able to bring to market at some point in the future and it is an the thing that is interesting to me about this paper is it's not full of flax of color which is very normal in recycled paper because you're recycling paper it's not all the same color right and one of the ways that this was done was bleaching it's like no that's bad but there's a company that i'm working with and they have they have a process of making a very good paper very well with minimal environmental impact but it's taken a really long time

to work that out right and so like that's what i expect to see more now and apple's got they have the money and the desire money care resource they and they yeah they can't the value add of an iPhone case must be huge. They can't afford to get a bad reputation because there are many companies that are very willing to take your business. Well, somebody in our chat, maybe it was Zach, said, yeah, it was Zach, said, think about Apple Watch bands.

I've never bought a third-party Apple Watch band. I bought one and it disappointed me. It was bad. I might now. But here's the thing. I'm worried about that. What if Apple were to come out and say, well, we've replaced all the fine watch bands that you love with new materials that are better for the world. Well, there are fine woven bands.

I know. I know. I'm scared now. I looked at them at the event and I actually thought that they fit better in the context, but they were clearly just meant to ape the old product line, right? So this is the danger is for the Apple Watch bands or for cases that it's not Apple. If they're not perceived as being, yeah, it's expensive, but they're good, right? It's expensive, but they're quality. If the perception is it's expensive and you shouldn't buy them because they're not very good they're just they're just trying to take more money out of you that's when

the magic spell collapses and the reputation becomes don't buy the apple stuff only buy the iphone from apple get everything from there there have always been people who shop and are like oh i can get a deal on a third party thing and it And it's a little weird, but it's cheaper. And it's great. For specific needs like John Syracuse. Exactly. Right. But the last thing Apple wants, Apple wants its sweet, sweet margins, but it also doesn't want a bad reputation for its products. And that's the danger. And I want to come back to something you said earlier about, like, it's funny that we're talking about cases a lot, but so many people put their phones in cases.

but so many people put their phones in cases reminds me of a conversation we had in one of my favorite episodes of upgrade which was something that actually every year apple does a better job with this which is it used to be so painful to move from one iphone to another so painful and you might think well yeah there are issues this year and there was an os update issue that we didn't even mention that was like annoying and they kind of messed that up and you had to update both your phones and all of that but but but it's so much better than it was where it's like hold the phones together and they pair and it knows what your apple id is and you take the camera and look at the other camera and it brings things over and it offers you migration it offers to back up your iCloud all that stuff didn't used to be there before and the point of that episode

way back when was part like the day you buy your phone should be the happiest day of the year in some ways, right? It should be like, yay, it's new iPhone day. And instead it's like, oh, it's such a pain to transfer it all over. So the cases are part of the iPhone upgrade program, right? Not the program, but the, you know what I mean?

It's, they are part of the upgrade process, the system, the experience, if you will, right? You get a lousy case. It hurts the iPhone.

Yep. Because somebody is like, yeah, because a lot of people aren't going to be finicky and they're going to be like, Oh, I'm going to send this back and I don't like this. They're going to put it on and it's going to finicky and they're going to be like, oh, I'm going to send this back and I don't like this. They're going to put it on and it's going to get stained

and they're going to not like the feel and they're going to remember they spent 60 bucks or whatever on it. They're going to be like, oh, this Apple case and it's going to weigh down the whole product. Episode 56 of Upgrade. The Upgrade program. The migration experience.

Oh yeah, the migration experience, yeah. Also good. Yeah, this as well and that as well. Like Steven just posted this. We saw him taking the pictures while he was helping us set up. It's true. oh yeah the migration experience yeah that also good yeah yeah this as well on that as well like steven just posted this we saw him taking the pictures before while he was helping us set up it's true he he's on his case on his fine woven case the usbc cutout is not centered i put pictures of it right it's not just the port on the phone it's literally the cutout is off the cutout is off quality of which is just like is that is that the worst thing no but it just it just it's not great it's not great right like again

like we're talking you know how the phones are made this feels and that's why i keep coming to back back to this being a systemic problem this feels like a case where parts of apple say we're going to do this we're committed and tim cook and company are like, yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And then it has this unexpected trickle down to this other area where they're like, what, we can't do leather anymore? Seriously, I remember Matthew Panzarino at TechCrunch writing a few years ago

about how Apple has some of the best leather people in the business. Well, they're all gone, right? They've been dismissed because they're out of that business. They used to make leather sleeves for iPads and MacBooks and stuff. It's all as luxury goods. And they're really're out of that business they used to make leather sleeves for ipads and macbooks and stuff it's all as luxury goods and they're really good all gone i always wanted one but just like had no reason to own it occasionally they would randomly send me one along

with a laptop review and i'd be like why i remember the first one the first time they did them that it was like with the ipad air something or like the ipad no i think it's like the 11 inch ipad pro or something and federico got a review in it and they gave him one and it was like with the iPad Air something or like the iPad. No, I think it's like the 11-inch iPad Pro or something. And Federico got a review in it and they gave him one and it had like the thing for the pencil. And I was like, oh, look at it. So anyway, all those people were dismissed and it came to them and they're like,

geez, what are we going to do? Which we said before. That's what it feels like. It feels like this is a thing where the decision was made at a high level. the assumption was made that everything was going to follow in and fall in place and everybody was brilliant at apple and they're going to figure it out and what these people did was come up with the best solution they could and pitch it and be like sell sell sell fine woven rich corinthian leather but not leather fine woven fabric. And either nobody said the emperor had no clothes or they did.

And they were like, well, too bad, 2030. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it. It's just not right. The train is already on the track. This is what we're going to get. But we'll see. And we don't know how quickly they can change their strategy. And maybe the general public just doesn't care.

But I am skeptical of that because we can always argue, oh, you tech nerds obsess about this stuff. And it's like, I don't know. I think regular people really care about their iPhones. And I think they really care about their iPhone cases. And if their iPhone case is crappy, doesn't feel right, gets stained, gets scratched,

and doesn't turn into a beautiful thing. Leather scratches. Yeah, but leather scratches and doesn't turn into a beautiful thing. Leather scratches. I'm seeing people talking about scratches. Leather scratches and then is beautiful, right? All right. No, I agree with that. If fine woven scratches and ends up with a beautiful patina, I will concede that I doubt it.

Yeah, you're probably right. I've scratched iPhone cases on week one, but after about six months they are all just sort of like soft and the fact that they scratch isn't a problem you're right it's the way it looks when that happens over time and how that's that's that's the those are all the dangers here and and you know i am sure that within apple there's a red light going off somewhere i mentioned usbc with steven's case it felt so weird to plug a usbc cable into my phone when i did it the first time this just feels too big and it's weird and all the

all our mental um processes for how we do this stuff you don't think about it and then you you can actually feel your brain like deprogramming yeah because the cables are just thicker right like the connector of a usbc right so just like the the feeling of plugging like the cable i was holding when i plugged it it just felt strange it's different i had a um so i brought my other phone because i travel with it because i got the i got my review units here in memphis and um i had a moment where i looked on the floor today in the hotel room and i was like oh there's one cable down on the floor what is that where I looked on the floor today in the hotel room and I was like, oh, there's one cable down on the floor. What is that?

Lightning. I was like, oh, it's the moment. It's the moment where I look at a lightning cable and go, oh, it's useless to me. I mean, it won't be useless at home because I still have some lightning stuff. But yeah, oh yeah. And I did charge my AirPods the other day in it.

But still, I had that moment of like, oh, you're old now. You're the past. I don't want you anymore. You're fading into irrelevance now, that little cable down there on the floor. What have you got on your action button? I had put do not disturb on there, and I realized I'm never going to use that. Okay. Right now, I have camera, which I know everybody's like, oh, but you could swipe.

It's like I always try to swipe, and I swipe the wrong direction. i try to tap and hold on the camera button and i it doesn't work for me um so right now i've got camera i think in the long run i'll probably have shortcuts i just tried because i know if you have the camera on that action button you can then use the action button to take photos yeah so you leave your finger there but you can't do that if you don't have camera yeah it's only when it's a camera on the action i mean i know you can use the volume buttons and that's yeah but it is nice i do like the idea of like press it and then you just like you're just taking photos yeah because the idea there is you build up muscle memory where you pick your phone out and you press and hold and it launches the camera and then you go click click click click click and it's all just i might give that a go at the moment i have a shortcut there this was federico's idea to add an item to todoist

because he said is like what's great about the mac is you can just have a keyboard shortcut bring up an entry bar for any to-do app that you want can't do that on the iphone you can do it with a shortcut but the idea of it being a physical key is interesting so i've set that up i'm going to see how that feels yeah and i've put um we're going to talk about ultra in a minute i put do not disturb on that action button because that made sense to me of like if i'm getting a bunch of notifications i just squeeze the watch and they'll go away on all my devices for an hour or whatever which i think is what i'm going to set it to do but the action button is interesting i i don't like that i have the little mute icon icon in the bar yeah i don't why is that there i don't need it there i don't i agree i don't need it there

yeah because it's right next to the clock it's there all the time i don't i don't like it i didn't need that before why do i need it now that i don't like i like that the the they put it in control center like we wanted them to yeah but i don't need the persistent reminder to me i need a reminder if my phone isn't muted because that is then the odd thing i don't need that there real time follow-up you can hide that icon this is annalene in the in the chat thank you i will i guess dig through settings yeah i was gonna say we there's so much going on up in the in the uh status bar now that you kind of want settings to control it it's in sound and haptics

show in status bar oh the discord saves yay discord gives and Discord saves. Thank you, Discord. Well, I'm using my phone to record this podcast right now, so I'll set it later. Set it and forget it. Okay, good to know. This episode is brought to you by Vitally. Customer success teams are facing a problem. How do they connect customer data back to their work? Vitaly changes that. It's a new kind of customer success platform, an all-in-one collaborative workspace that combines your customer data with all of the capabilities you expect from today's project management and work platforms. Because it's designed for today's customer success team, that's why Vitaly operates with unparalleled efficiency, improves net revenue retention, and delivers best-in-class customer experiences. It's the solution to help your customer success teams keep a better pulse on your customers, which maximizes

productivity, visibility, and collaboration. You can boost your bottom line by driving more revenue per customer with Vitally. And if you take a qualified demo of Vitaly, you get a free pair of AirPods Pro. So if you're a customer success decision maker, actively seeking CS solutions, working at a B2B software as a service company with 50 to 1,000 employees, and you're willing to explore

changing customer success platforms, if you already have one in place, schedule your call by visiting vitally.io slash upgrade and get that free pair of AirPods Pro. That is vitally, V-I-T-A-L-L-Y dot I-O slash upgrade to get a free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule a qualified meeting. Our thanks to Vitalik for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Did you get any review watches? I did. Okay.

Which? I got the Series 9 Standard. Okay. I haven't taken it out of the box yet. Okay. Because I was really concerned about how... standard okay in i don't even know i haven't i haven't taken it out of the box yet okay because i was really concerned about uh how i think i want to set that up attached to one of the other phones so that i can just walk around with it but have it not be or maybe it'll be my day watch night watch i don't know i'm just a little concerned there because i use the cellular functions and

it means i probably have to attach i think it is cellular but i have to attach it to my if i want to use it with cellular i have to attach it to my at&t account and pay a setup fee and like i'm not sure i want to do that for what right because i mean what to to use it finding but there isn't like the major feature i guess of any interest is the double tap which is maybe your watch has it i don't know because i don't think so i think marquez brownlee got a watch sent to him with double tap that had it interesting and so he was able to use it for his review i'll have to find out it had like a pre-release version of 10.1 or something on it okay yeah so i i'm not taking it out of the box um i'm not buying one but i'll i'll check it out. Apple Watch growth is slow.

I mean, the new processor, so it should be much more responsive and all of that, and I'm sure that apps will come out that will take advantage of it. On the Pro, there's a game that I play a lot, which I love, by the way. I recommend it. It's an Apple Arcade.

It is kind of like a match-three game. It's really good. It's kind of like threes three game. It's really good. It's like kind of like threes and it's a great game. It is called Finity. F-I-N-I-T-Y. Okay. So it's like Xfinity without the X. Sure.

And it's an Apple Arcade game. I've been playing it a lot recently. It opens so much faster. The animation looked broken when the app opened. Like there's like this little animation, but it went super fast. And then the game was ready. It's the game company's little stinger. But it went three times the speed as normal.

I was like, oh, okay. There's something going on in here. But yeah, I got an Apple Watch Ultra 2. Yes, let's talk about it. Upgrading from a Series 7, which me and that Series 7, gold, stainless steel, loved it. But the battery life, killing me.

I was charging my watch before I went to bed because I was sleep tracking and then would charge it again in the morning and I would get, like, I was getting like 10, 11 hours battery life usually a day so like i would get to about nine o'clock at night and i'll get the 10 battery warning this is happening every day and that's with like on average i guess like the main thing for me there like on an average day i would clock in at about 45 minutes of activity like exercise time

which is just from walking so like that would just that and just like regular watch use would kill the battery basically every day so i was and i held off getting the original ultra because i wasn't sure that i was going to like the way it looked and felt i then experienced it a few months later and liked it but decided I would wait because I did not want to upgrade like six, eight months before or whatever. So I thought I would wait. And I figured maybe there would be some differences. There are, but they're slight, I guess. The look of it, I enjoy. It's big. It is big, but I knew that. But I like the flat display a lot. I like the color of the display.

The brightness is wild. How bright this watch is is wild to me. And also what compounds with that is when it's off, it looks on. And I like that a lot. I never have liked the transition. And a lot of watch faces don't deal with the transition very well. But I've found that some of the watch faces that you can apply color to, it doesn't look that different anymore from when they're in the always on mode and when they're on.

So I appreciate that about it. The hardware of the watch is interesting to me. The action button, okay. I have not accidentally enabled it yet, but I know I'm going to, and I'm going to see what that feels like. I'm not a big fan of the crown guard. I don't need that. I would prefer everything to be flat and there to be the crown.

The crown feels fine to use it's i think it's a bit bigger but it's also got the kind of texture on it all of this stuff is fine the overall thing that i don't the only thing that i actually really don't like about the ultra 2 i knew is that it's too tall off the wrist ah it's big it's a big watch in a dimension that I don't want it to be big in, but that just is what it is. What I know about this watch that I didn't have so much about the Series 7 is I will wear regular watches more with being this watch owner than I was with a Series 7 owner. I feel like the Series 7 could kind of fade into the background a little bit when wearing nice clothes.

But the Ultra 2, I don't think I will be as comfortable in. And I have a couple of watches that I love. Yeah, you have some nice dress watches. And so I'll be able to wear those again. The reason I haven't is because I always want to get the activity information, right? But I feel like in some circumstances now,

I'll be more likely to swatch out swap out swatch out swap out for a traditional watch than i would have otherwise um i mentioned it earlier but my plan for the the action button is a do not disturb maybe on like an hour or something and my thought there is if i'm getting a lot of notifications i like the mental model of like just squeezing my watch just putting it on mute for a while. And they'll all go away for a bit. And I like that as an idea because then also the way that I run my devices,

that will put every device on do not disturb for an hour because I have the focus modes will sync up. I had that happen when we were taking the tour at St. Jude on Thursday. And there was a flurry of texts that came in. And I think they were all on a group text with people who weren't there. And I think I actually put myself in do not disturb because it was not that they weren't perfectly important.

In another context, they would have been fine, but it was very much a not now. I'm not receiving notifications right now. So I mentioned earlier that I would get like 11 hours battery life in a day right so kind of around nine hours would have been about 80 of the battery that i was using uh i did in nine hours yesterday 30 i'm sold like i sleep track i did not charge my watch this morning the last time i charged my watch uh I don't actually remember when it was now, but I have 61% battery. So this will last me all the way until tonight when I put my watch in

charge, take a shower, and I'll be ready to go again. I'm very excited about that. The thing I'm struggling with also is watch face choices. So I feel like a lot of the traditional round watch faces don't look right on the ultra's larger screen so i was using the metropolitan one and i feel like there it just doesn't extend enough with the corner complications i think it probably can't it just won't work so i'm trying out different ones i figured do i just lean into what the watch wants me to be and do one of the modular ones and just make it a computer watch and stop trying to make it look nice which is what i've always tried to do so i'm trying out the modular ultra which is very aggressive as a watch face it has a central complication and six circle complications and a bar like a ring that goes around the outside

which i set it to tick for seconds so it's like a seconds ticking around second hand on a modular face but you can set it i think is like depth and compass as well so i'm trying this i've also tried out the the like the more regular uh modular one i think it's called yeah just modular i've tried that out but what i've also thought about and i'm gonna play around with more why not just make the best looking watch face i can because i don't need complications anymore maybe because i have widgets right so i'm thinking like you know like i've always really liked the typograph watch face where it's just like big numbers you can put it in nice colors and they can have different styles and then all i need to do is just scroll up and i have

my widgets which for me funnily enough, my widgets and my complications, pretty much the same. Because the things that I want to know, it's pretty limited, right? It's like, what's my next appointment? What's my activity today? Am I running a timer? And what's the weather? That's basically all I want my watch to give me. Widgets give me that too. So I'm thinking that maybe i just try and make something that looks attractive and gives me the time which is ultimately what i'm looking for when i look at the watch and then maybe i get used to swiping up for more stuff i'm not sure about that yet but i'm gonna play around with it but the the watch faces that i have usually gravitated towards which are

the round faces they don't work for me anymore um i've also always really liked california yeah which looks great full screen too so i might give that a go that's really nice i think that looks really nice and i've i've tinted them orange as well because it matches with the the action button this is the other thing is like i'm not sure how all my bands are going to work so i bought three bands that have orange in them so i bought the the new nike one the blue one with the orange stuff and this is these are great like the design of these i got the trail one which is like cream and blue and orange then i got the orange uh ocean band as well so that's kind of for me of like i'm replacing what i would typically wear and then i'll see if i i've always liked the magnetic link i've not worn that with this yet

but it's there's a lot of orange on the watch which i do like but not always right i would have maybe liked to have seen that not be the case the orange on the crown is fine because it still has this the the lte ones still have red, right? But then the orange action button, I don't know. I will say it's not as orange as I thought it was. But it's still pretty orange. But in my mind, it was a bright orange, but it's still kind of black.

Yeah, that's the Golden Gate Bridge. It's international orange. Is the Golden Gate Bridge international orange? Yes. Oh, because I thought it was more red. Well, international orange is a little more red. Next time I'm in San Francisco, I'm going to put my watch next to the bridge. Yes, hold it up. See what happens.

Okay. And it's got the screen guard, so I could ding it against the Golden Gate Bridge and maybe it won't be a problem. So yeah, I'm very happy with this. I've got to change the way I use my Apple Watch, but that's fine too. Because watchOS 10,

it actually kind of feels to me like the perfect time for me to make this change because it feels like apps are designed for it with the full screen yeah really feels like that and so i'm already changing the way i use my watch anyway so why not go one step further and change a lot more about it makes sense this episode is brought to you by ladder let's be real we all have a tendency to put some things off until the very last minute. Whether that's going to your next appointment, to the DMV, arranging a dental checkup I have a text from my dentist which is like 3 months old at this point or getting to that home improvement project that's on your list. You know these kinds of things I'm talking about.

Most of the time, it's fine. You'll get to it, you'll take care of it, not an issue. But the one thing in life that you cannot afford to wait on talking about. Most of the time, it's fine. You'll get to it. You'll take care of it. Not an issue. But the one thing in life that you cannot afford to wait on is setting up term coverage life insurance. You've probably seen life insurance commercials on TV and thought, yeah, I'll look into that later. But this really isn't something you should wait on. Choose life insurance through Ladder today. Ladder is 100% digital. No doctors, no needles, no paperwork. When you apply for $3 million in coverage or less, just answer a few questions about your health in an application. Very easy to do so. Ladder's customers rate them 4.8 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot, and they made Forbes' best life insurance list of 2021. You need just a few minutes to apply and a phone or a

laptop. Ladder's smart algorithms will work in real time, so you'll find out if you're instantly approved. There are no hidden fees you can cancel at any time, and you'll get a full refund if you change your mind in the first 30 days. Ladder policies are insured by insurers with long, proven histories of paying claims they're rated a and a plus by am best and since life insurance costs more as you age now's the time to cross it off your list go to ladderlife.com upgrade today to see if you're instantly approved that's ladderlife.com upgrade one last, that's ladderlife.com slash upgrade.

Our thanks to Ladder for their support of this show and RelayFM. Should we do some Ask Upgrade questions to finish today's episode? Whoa, watch out

for those lasers in this room, Jason. They're bouncing all over the place. I had a question that I brought into the document that I wasn't going to do today, but I liked it

because it mirrors all the way around to some of the conversations we've been having in today's show i think it actually matches with two of the bigger conversations we've had it comes from brad with apple's 2013 environmental commitments where does this put the car project it's a good question the the idea is that it's an electric car. So, you know, they never had an internal combustion engine project. I think the idea there is that especially if you're taking, you're moving everybody to electric and reducing the pollution, that that's a good thing. But there are lots of issues with battery parts especially.

But I would say you're starting to hear Apple talk about using recycled materials in their batteries right isn't it recycled cobalt i think they said so i think when we were watching it gray was very impressed by that i don't know why so i think what you're seeing because apple car you know if it happens it's going to that, first off, they're also doing some offsets. And there's lots of, I've definitely gotten some emails from people and like press releases from organizations talking about carbon offsets. And Apple insists that these are the good ones. But the problem with carbon offsets is you're still emitting carbon. And then you're paying to plant a tree somewhere and say that's equivalent. And there are lots of debates about how equivalent it really is.

And it really isn't in a lot of cases. So they might do some of that with a car. I do think though, that in the end, the biggest question I have about that is the batteries and Apple makes lots of products with batteries. So for Apple's 2030 pledge, they're going to need to do a lot of work. And I imagine they're already spending huge amounts of money working on ways to fix their battery cycle to reuse materials in their batteries as much as is possible as well. They've done that with a lot of their other parts on their devices. look they don't want to be the company that's taking stuff out of the ground in sometimes in places that where the environmental impact is huge and the human impact can be huge they don't want to do that they do have the money and the motivation like we said before so um i think that they're working on that because they've got to get that commitment has to apply to

all their batteries and all their devices by 2030 the thing that i was wondering about this question is just like the sheer manufacturing required like additional manufacturing to make cars right that seems like a lot yeah well that's the question about the whole car project is yeah it does seem like a lot doesn't it maybe they would have a manufacturing partner and they would make sure that their electricity is, or they would offset it by buying electricity over here and saying this is for that plant or whatever. I don't know.

If they can work it out, though, it does give them just enough a reason to say why they're doing it. We're trying to remove more cars from the road, but there are questions still about whether electric cars are actually that much better. I hear a lot of arguments about it.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the arguments are about the source of the electricity because it needs to be from clean electrical sources and all of that. But in the end, there are devices that don't burn gasoline and therefore literally just emit those gases into the air. So that's good, but

it has to be backed by a lot of other things. Because as well, that's how Apple are doing it too. I forgot about that, but again, I heard MKBHD's review and it was a reminder that was surprising to me. The carbon neutrality of the Apple Watch is also all the electricity you'll ever use to charge it.

That's to make it a fully carbon neutral product. It's not carbon neutral manufacturing. By 2030, every product Apple makes, they are also building into that idea. The electricity to power that product

for its expected lifespan. That's hard of a car. Yes, it's true. Although the trick there is that you can also build a model about the its expected lifespan. That's hard of a car. Yes, it's true. That's a lot of power. Although the trick there is that you can also build a model about the increase in the percentage of green sources coming in.

And my guess is Apple's not paying for green energy for all the electricity that charges all the Apple Watches. They're paying for the percentage of electricity used across the world to charge Apple Watches that's not coming from a green source. That's what they're doing. So they could anticipate that over time, that percentage is going to keep going down. And so their cost

there will go down. But you're right. Cars use a lot of electricity too. I think what I find most interesting about this environmental commitment to Apple, well, it's two things. One is their scale and their resources put them in a unique position. It makes it harder because every Apple product is millions, right? And so they can't source a part for a phone unless they can have many millions of them. And it totally changes how they do business. unless they can have many millions of them. And it totally changes how they do business. But they also have massive resources. So for a company like Apple to do this, really interesting, they're probably going to push in a lot of areas and even create momentum in areas that might need that momentum, but they need somebody behind it. So I find that fascinating.

And the other thing I find fascinating is, and this is the semi-political version of this, I'm sure Tim Cook and Lisa Jackson know what they're doing. What they're doing is preventing other big companies from claiming they can't do it. And that's really interesting because they're going to make life harder for their competition and for other companies and other businesses, because everybody's going to be able to say, Apple is doing it. Why aren't you? And the little trick when Apple does this sort of thing is Apple is always, of course, uniquely positioned to do it better. So it gives them a competitive advantage because if the world comes in and says, Apple's, you know, you have to

do this because Apple's doing it and their competitors like, okay, they're not going to be able to do it as well as Apple. And that's going to hurt them or cost them more. And it makes Apple more successful. So there's that business aspect of it too. And if I had an investor, I was an Apple person, I had the investors come in and say, why are you doing this? That would be the answer is we think we can do this. Everybody's going to have to do it. And we're going to do it better than everyone else. And so we're going to win. And so it's good for us as a business to do this. That's the way you make that argument. Anthony asks, do you think that promotion having the word pro in its name will preclude it from ever appearing in a non pro Apple product? I have some thoughts about this because it hasn't yet. Right. So like we have the dynamic island, but there is not a promotion display and there's also not always on display and i feel like promotion at the moment maybe and they always aren't a kind of link together but anyway this is the the the higher

refresh rate display right is the promotion technology so my expectation for this is that at some point down the line promotion isMotion is enhanced, either higher refresh rate or they add something else to that technology, which will then allow a version of ProMotion to be on a different display. Do they call it ProMotion? Maybe, I don't know. Like maybe it gets a different name

when it's a different refresh rate. I am surprised Apple have yet to go to 90 on the regular iPhones. They are falling behind competition in that regard. If people care about it, I don't know, right? It's spoken a lot about in tech YouTube videos. I care about it, but that's one of the reasons I buy the Pro phone

is I like it to feel really smooth. But I think that that's probably what will happen is that at some point, you know, maybe the pro phones go to 240 frames per second and then they bring 90 or 120 to the regular phones. Yeah, I mean, my short answer here is Apple names will never preclude Apple from doing whatever it wants, right? There's no, oh, we can't do this because it's, the moment that Apple thinks that it makes sense for whatever reason for the non-pro phones to have ProMotion, they will add it. So the question is just, you know, and they'll say, oh, look, literally the iPhone 15 non-pro on Apple's marketing pages, when they talk about the fact that it's got the processor from last year,

they say that it was tested in pro environments, tested by the pros and now available to you. That's how they pitched that. So like they can, they can work around it. So I think the answer is going to be promotion held out of the non pro phones is a thing that will happen until it, they have enough stuff in the pro phones and it's inconvenient enough to hold it out that they're like this is the dynamic island argument other than the fact

that pro is in the name the dynamic island argument is oh well do you withhold the dynamic island from everywhere uh that isn't a pro phone in order to sell pro phones and the answer was well no it we'd rather have that everywhere i imagine that at at some point, 60 frames will become a feature that they're like, no, this should have it. And maybe the answer is they go to 90 frames if people care. If people don't care,

they'll go to 60 frames at some point and they'll be like, nobody cares above this. And they'll say, and it's got promotion, yay. I think now 60 currently. No, but not on the, or is it 60 and 120

that we have currently? Okay. So you've got your high frame rate and your low frame rate they'll bring it down if they want to and if it's convenient for them and maybe they'll bring it down because they've got a higher frame rate but but maybe nobody cares about the higher frame rate and maybe promotion is good enough for everybody in which case they'll just put it in there they They don't care. And Bo asks, what configurations are each of your 2022 MacBook Airs along with the color? They're next to each other.

This is beautiful. Yeah, they're touching just a little bit. We both have the same color. Yeah, they're both 13-inch Midnight M2. You got more GPU power than me. I got the 10-core GPU. I don't remember why I did it. I just did it.

I think it was, for me, I wanted 24 gigabytes of RAM and one terabyte storage. I might have ended up with some kind of package and added one thing. You know what I mean? Right, that might be. Well, this is the story of this, is we have seemingly identical laptops,

but you spent a lot more money on yours than I did online. I have a 10-core GPU, or you have a 10 10 core gpu 24 gigs of ram and the terabyte storage i have 8 16 and 512 so i don't have the base model but i have much closer to the base model than you do i'm trying to see now because i'm expecting that there was some kind of like limit of some kind yeah that you were in the in the buying uh thing and uh you had to go to the higher level and then configure that one. Oh, actually, it doesn't look like... No, that's the 8-core, 10-core. Oh, they only do 8 and 10 now.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Like, they only do 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU in the M2. Oh, they don't do the 8-core GPU? Oh, I found it. It's under a different button why does it say new i don't know this is very confusing to me oh i was looking at the 15 inch oh that that would be why i was looking at the 15 inch so let me look if i do the eight core g because they only do eight and ten in the in the 13 yeah it turns out it didn't make any difference. I just went with my 10 core GPU for whatever reason I went with that.

You need more Gs. More Gs in my PUs. I do a lot on this machine, so I just was like, oh, I'll bump it up and go the extra. And this is my main computer. This is what I do for all of my work on Relay. And it is not mine, so I'm fine.

I love it. Yep. Please don't forget, go to stjude.org slash Relay, give often, give generously, and help us support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in their fight against childhood cancer all throughout September. You can send us your feedback, follow-up, and questions at upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason's work at sixcolors.com. I'm assuming you'll

probably have some device reviews within the next... Don't give me a deadline. The next time, within the next amount of time. Yeah, within an amount of span of time, I will review devices. You can also hear Jason's shows from RelayFM and at theincomparable.com.

You can also listen to my podcast here on RelayFM. You can check out my work at cortexbrand.com. It's that paper you were talking about. There's paper there. We also currently have subtleties on sale for a limited time and hoodies but don't buy those we'll buy our hoodies again

sometime soon this is a lightweight hoodie so the upgrade hoodie is a thick hoodie the subtle one is a lightweight hoodie buy all the hoodies you can find us on Mastodon Jason is at jsnell jsnll on zeppelin.flights. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E, on mike.social.

The show is on Mastodon as upgrade, at relayfm.social. You can watch video clips of the show there and on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, where we are at upgraderelay. We're also on threads. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Jason is at jsnow, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am going to do something to tidy this up further,

but I don't know what it is. It is long. It's long. We'll slim it down. We'll find a way. Thank you to our members and supporters of Upgrade Plus. Thank you to our sponsors. That is Factor, Vitally, and Ladder

for their support of this episode. But most of all, as always, thank you to our sponsors. That is factor vitally and ladder for their support of this episode. But most of all, as always, thank you for listening. We're back next time until then. Say goodbye. Just as now, give me another high five.

Woo.